October 9th marks World Post Day, an international observance adopted by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) Congress in Tokyo in 1969. It commemorates the founding of the UPU in Bern, Switzerland, in 1874—the world’s second-oldest international organization.
This year, the occasion arrives in a world interconnected by an integrated digital economy and a postal network comprising over 650,000 post offices employing millions of staff. In stark contrast, Syria is enduring stifling postal isolation and a fragmentation of services unprecedented in its modern history.
Within the Syrian context, this occasion takes on critical significance. Development and service reports indicate that more than 70% of Syrian post offices and logistics centers have been rendered inoperable due to war and destruction. Furthermore, the suspension of international and domestic postal and financial transactions across various zones of control has deepened social and geographic divisions, isolating millions of Syrians inside the country from their families and the wider world.
The Syrian Future Movement asserts that a unified postal network is a fundamental attribute of state sovereignty. It maintains that the fragmentation of the postal and service systems—compounded by a multiplicity of distorted security and administrative bodies across different zones of influence—amounts to a tacit entrenchment of the country’s partition. This undermines the integrity of Syrian territory, the comprehensive unity of which the Movement steadfastly upholds. The Syrian Future Movement believes that depriving Syrian citizens of secure, fairly priced postal services—such as logistics, salary distribution, and the documentation of essential records for displaced persons and refugees—is a direct consequence of the corruption and authoritarianism that have devastated infrastructure and marginalized societal needs in favor of narrow, authoritarian entities.
The Syrian Future Movement views the postal isolation imposed on Syria as a hindrance to the local economy and to the emerging businesses of young entrepreneurs; it urgently calls for insulating the essential services sector from political wrangling, opening internal postal corridors, and establishing immediate logistical links between all governorates to facilitate citizens’ lives.
The Syrian Future Movement emphasizes the necessity of nurturing young Syrian engineering and technical talent in fields such as software, telecommunications, and supply chain management. It advocates for creating a supportive political and economic environment that halts the ongoing brain drain and attracts these minds to rebuild and modernize the national telecommunications and services sector.
Guided by its civic and progressive vision, the Syrian Future Movement proposes a roadmap to revitalize the sector:
A comprehensive transition toward “Smart Digital Postal Services”: Launching a forward-looking national project to automate postal services and integrate digital solutions—such as e-government services and a unified postal addressing system based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS)—to align with current global sustainability standards. Reforming the Investment Structure: Encouraging genuine, disciplined public-private partnerships to establish flexible, advanced logistics and shipping hubs. These hubs will revitalize local e-commerce and create thousands of job opportunities for young people.
Logistics Bridging Initiative for Displaced Persons: Coordinating with the Universal Postal Union and international partner organizations to devise secure, temporary postal solutions. These measures will ensure the delivery of correspondence and official documents to citizens in remaining displacement camps and neighboring countries, thereby preventing their civil and legal marginalization.
Post-Political Transition Partnerships: Preparing—through agreed-upon frameworks—to reactivate Syria’s full membership in regional and international postal and financial unions immediately following the achievement of the long-overdue democratic political transition. This step will serve as a gateway to reintegrating the Syrian economy into the global system.
The Syrian Future Movement extends its appreciation to the postal workers and service staff who remain steadfast on the front lines of work and connectivity, despite the perilous and difficult conditions. They remain convinced that messages of freedom and reconstruction will inevitably arrive to shape the future of a new Syria.
